Turning a new leaf at NHIS
New Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Professor Usman Yusuf recently read the riot act to the country’s Health Management Organisations (HMOs) which are operating under the scheme. Disappointed at what he inherited, Yusuf charged them to turn a new leaf in their service delivery obligations as his agency will henceforth visit […]
New Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Professor Usman Yusuf recently read the riot act to the country’s Health Management Organisations (HMOs) which are operating under the scheme. Disappointed at what he inherited, Yusuf charged them to turn a new leaf in their service delivery obligations as his agency will henceforth visit any infractions from them with the maximum penalty as provided by law.
Addressing a meeting of the scheme’s Standing Committee and HMOs in Abuja, Yusuf said “there is a new sheriff in town who cares.’ He said all stakeholders captured in the scheme will be held accountable for their performance. He further directed that all HMOs should wake up to their responsibilities under his watch and take quality service to all enrolees at every point of need, while according the enrolees respect and dignity.
Against the backdrop of the present state of affairs in the NHIS scheme, Yusuf’s charge is most welcome and therefore commendable. It marks a formal declaration that it will no more be business as usual as far as the scheme is concerned. For prior to his advent the NHIS scheme had degenerated to an abysmal low in the rating of the ordinary Nigerians for whom it was intended to serve in respect of facilitating prompt and affordable medical services.
NHIS was intended to provide a platform on which Nigerian employees can be contributing through their employers a provision for future health related expenses for them and members of their families. However, the everyday experience of many enrolees is a syndrome of deplorable services, featuring non-challant attitude of doctors and other health care delivery personnel, provision of inferior and even fake drugs and other operational slips. This situation is not unconnected with the fact that the HMOs accord priority to cash paying patients over the NHIS enrolees whose payment is usually deferred and delayed. The HMOs therefore seem to place money above the health status of the NHIS enrolees.
Yet as assuring as Yusuf’s charge may be, the task before him which borders on a complete overhaul of the NHIS scheme is to say the least enormous. The systemic challenges indicate that the rot in the system features from inside the NHIS establishment where unscrupulous staff collaborate with the erring HMOs to fleece the system and unsuspecting enrolees. Hence his task will entail an in-house cleaning as well as the external reorientation of the HMOs. The process will entail a new code of practice for the HMOs and any other stake holder to comply with while the staff of the agency should be availed additional mentoring. One of the measures that will bring sanity in the system is to compel HMOs to refund payments already collected for undelivered services and out of stock drugs. Just as well, his commitment to apply the weight of the law on erring HMOs should be actualised in order to restore equity and sanity in the system.
His new task will entail effective monitoring of every stage of the service delivery operation of the agency as it may affect every individual enrolee in every HMO facility throughout the country. This will avail him an effective control of the exercise and facilitate the implementation of reform measures. The monitoring process will benefit substantially if it provides room for individual enrolees to report back on specific instances of infractions by any HMO around the country.
Meanwhile the fact remains that most Nigerian enrolees do not actually know their rights with respect to the workings of the NHIS, hence they remain vulnerable to the antics of its unscrupulous officials and the collaborating HMOs. This situation dictates that the new Executive Secretary addresses the challenge of informing and sensitising Nigerians on the merits of the system as well as their obligations.